


Cover

by OriginalImpossibleSouffleGirl



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, An Attempt At Therapy Was Made, Angst, Eventual Smut, F/M, Non-Endgame Joss/Ian, Romance, Sex, What's Worse: Death or Suburbia?, joss carter lives
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-18 19:43:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7327900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OriginalImpossibleSouffleGirl/pseuds/OriginalImpossibleSouffleGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Team Machine's new number is a ghost. What happens when Reese is confronted with a future he did not know could be possible?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Majestrix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Majestrix/gifts).



> This takes place in Nov 2014, so in canon, it falls between the S4 episodes Honor Among Thieves and Point of Origin. 
> 
> Also, in the show at this point, John's been ducking the hell out of Iris for like weeks (or days. Whatever), but for the purposes of this fic let's say he's shown up for a couple of sessions. 
> 
> Anyway, here goes my second attempt at writing Careese. Hope y'all like it. Or at least don't hate it.
> 
> Finally, thank you again to Majestrix, who's been a great help as always.

“Tell me about her.”

 It had taken a couple of sessions before Iris Campbell seized on his mention of Carter, but seize she has. The therapist had an annoying habit of knowing exactly that which he wanted to keep under wraps. Not just how shallow his Riley persona really is, but other, emotional things he’s compartmentalized for his own sanity. Things he’s shut away so that he can continue doing the work with Finch, for the Machine.

 Things like Joss Carter.

 At his silence, Iris prods again, mistaking his reticence for confusion.

 “The detective you mentioned before. The one you couldn’t save. What was her name?”

 If she only knew how fitting it was for her to bring up Carter now, just a day before the anniversary of her death, a date so significant it was literally seared on his skin.

 He shifts in his chair, the bullet wounds echoing the memory they represent. They’d healed long ago—that is, he knows that the strange buzzing sensation he feels from them now isn’t _real_ —but _he_ hasn’t. Not really.  Not enough to give Iris the context she is asking for, anyway.

 He glances at the clock behind her on the desk.

 “It seems as if our time is up,” he says in a carefully neutral tone he knows doesn’t fool her.

 He stands and moves toward the door, not pausing when Iris speaks.

 “See you next week, John.”

 He avoids the precinct, opting instead to stop in a bar he once took Joss to, in the early days when she’d danced around working with him. He remembers her eyes then; equal parts distrust and interest.

 He orders a scotch but doesn’t drink it, staring into it as he tries to feel what he felt then. How she managed to melt the ice rind around his heart with a challenge or two—or, he reminds himself with a self-deprecating chuckle, a thousand. But also with her compassion. Her dedication. Her conviction.

 How strange to both love and hate something in someone in equal measure.

 If Joss had been anyone but who she was, she’d be sitting beside him right now, warm hand on his arm and gracefully arched eyebrow raised, asking if he’d had enough sleep lately. Or maybe telling him yet again to stop shooting when talking would do.

  _If Joss had been anyone but who she was, she wouldn’t be Joss._

 And she wouldn’t have done what she did for him. But she’d be alive. And he wouldn’t.

  _A fair trade_ , he thinks as he finally brings the tumbler to his lips and feels the woodsy burn of the scotch down his throat.

 His phone buzzes.

 “Mr. Reese?” Finch’s voice in his ear brings him back from the land of what ifs.

 “Finch.”

 “We have a number.”

                                                                 

* * *

 

 

 “Our new number is posing something of a challenge,” Finch says as he limps back to the computer.

 John glances back at the window of the subway car and scratches Bear behind the ear.

 “No picture?”

 “I’m afraid not,” Finch replies, tapping away at something on the keyboard and peering at the results. “What’s more, in addition to an exceedingly scant online presence, it seems as though Miss Cole’s social security number is barely a year old, suggesting that we are either dealing with a recently naturalized citizen or—“

 “Or a baby. Like Leila. I thought Root was taking care of the babysitting jobs lately.”

 “Miss Groves’ previous identity as a French nanny has no doubt been changed by now, Mr. Reese, and this number came specifically to us, so it is safe to assume it is tailored to _our_ skills.”

 John dismisses Bear softly and approaches Finch in order to squint at the screen.

 “Just saying. I got rid of all the rattles and teething rings.”

 “Oh, now, this is strange,” Finch murmurs before typing even faster than before.

 “Strange?”

 “Our number, Miss Josephine Cole, appears to have a connection to one Ian Malone.”

 “And this is strange why?”

 “Mr. Malone owns a software firm and is reasonably well-off. Lives in a nice, two-story home in Winchester, Massachusetts, presumably with Miss Cole, whose name is on the title along with his.”

 “A one-year-old with her own house?”

 “Indeed. But that is not the strange part.”

 “Seems pretty strange to me,” John says softly as Finch types a few commands, then prints the result.

 “I am sure,” Finch says as he hands John a picture, “that you will recall Mr. Malone…”

 John raises an eyebrow as he studies the picture of a blond man with an easy smile.

 “…Or should I say, Mr. Ian Murphy?” Finch finishes.

 “Looks like I’m going to Massachusetts,” John says as he drops the picture on the desk and turns away to leave.

 “I will alert Detective Fusco that you will be needing some time off and instruct Miss Shaw to join you. And John?”

 John turns, raising a questioning eyebrow.

 “Try not to jump to any conclusions.”

                                                              

* * *

 

“So do I get to shoot him this time?”

 John presses his lips together, hiding his faint amusement as he turns unto Oxford, the street on which their number’s house is. He’s comforted by Shaw’s dislike of their former number. It makes him feel as if his own is justified, even though he knows it isn’t.

 “It’s gonna suck if he turns out to be a victim again,” she adds, pulling out her Beretta and inspecting the clip one last time.

 “He’s not our number; Josephine Cole is,” John reminds her.

 “Then there’s still hope I can shoot him,” she says with a wolfish grin before holstering her weapon and bending down to inspect the knife she hid in her boot.

 There is a silence then that seems uncomfortably expectant to John. Working with Shaw was preferable to working with Fusco because it was blessedly uncomplicated. Shaw didn’t care. Or ask questions. Or talk about feelings.

 “Are you okay?”

  _Until now_. John resists the desire to sigh.

 “Look, I know this isn’t normally my thing, but… we’re gonna be dealing with pretty boy in there—“ Shaw nods her head at the colonial they’ve pulled up to, the house their number owns along with Ian Murphy “—and it’s around the time she… I just don’t want to deal with you breaking down because of the memories or whatever, okay?”

 John turns off the ignition, palming the keys and reaching for the car door. He plans to leave it at that, saying nothing and just walking up the nice drive to the nice house and doing his job. Shaw would get the hint, he knows. But instead, he pauses and regards her.

 She’s a little uncomfortable asking, and it makes him feel better. Shaw doesn’t talk about feelings, and neither does he.

 Except with friends. Except with Joss.

 “When have you ever seen me break down, Shaw?” he asks with a wry smirk, and they’re both relieved when the joke works, allowing them to pretend they’ve had an entire Talk and resolved the issue.

 They make their way up the drive companionably.

 “I can hold you while you cry,” she drawls.

 “Shut up, Shaw.”

 The mood turns serious again as they approach the front door. It’s ajar, showing signs of having been forced open.

 “Shit.”

 John is forced to agree; the sound of something breaking and a startled feminine shout comes from the interior of the home and both he and Shaw rush in, guns drawn.

 The sounds of the struggle lead them to a spacious kitchen where three men in black masks are trying to subdue a woman who appears to be holding her own in the fight. Shaw and John take a split-second to admire the way the woman elbows one of the men in the solar plexus and whirls to stomp a stiletto-clad foot on the instep of the second; her movements assured even as her long brown hair falls across her face, obscuring her vision.

 “I like her,” Shaw quips to John, shooting the hopping man in the kneecap. The other man, winded and clutching his chest from where Josephine elbowed him, turns to her and John. The third man has managed to grab hold of Josephine but has trouble keeping her. In exasperation he throws her against the marble-topped island; Josephine collides with a painful grunt, falling over the top and down the other side.

 John immediately grabs the man by the back of the neck, slamming his head down against the island as well, knocking him out before turning and shooting Shaw’s new masked friend in the knee. He smirks at her offended glare.

 “Sorry,” he offers before he bends down to separate the intruders from their weapons.

 His phone buzzes and he taps his earpiece.

 “Mr. Reese, is everything alright? Have you found Miss Cole yet?”

 “Yeah, she’s—“

 “…John?”

 John freezes. That voice. He knows that voice.

 Shaw stands up slowly, a soft “holy shit” escaping her.

 John closes his eyes against all of it, afraid to turn around and face the ghost he knows will be standing there.

 “John,” the ghost says again, and he can’t keep himself from turning anymore. It’s been too long and he’s missed her too much.

 Joss Carter stands there, looking impossibly lovely with long, honey-threaded brown hair and a shoulder-baring burgundy sweater, in the middle of a well-appointed kitchen marred only by a broken tureen, three unconscious men in masks, and two stunned ex-spies.

 Her eyes don’t release him even as the surprise in them morphs into relief and confusion. His heart thuds painfully in his chest.

 “Hey,” she says softly.

  _It can’t be._

 He becomes dimly aware of a frantic Finch buzzing in his ear.

 “Mr. Reese? _John_. Did I hear correctly, is that Detective Carter?!”

 


	2. Strange Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The surprises keep coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the kudos and comments! Gonna try to do right by y'all.

**_Dec 2013_ **

 

Beep... beep... beep...

 Joss grabs hold of the sound and climbs it slowly to consciousness. She doesn't recognize the source until her eyes are fully opened. She is in a hospital bed, an IV plugged into her left arm and a cord traveling from her chest to what is no doubt a heart monitor positioned at the top left corner of her narrow bed.

 "What--"

 Her voice sounds rusty from disuse and she winces when just the one word scrapes its way out of her throat like glass. The lights are off, and a pale, weak sun barely illuminates her room. A private one, she notes.

 Finch must've--

 Finch. _John_.

 At his name, Joss closes her eyes tightly, remembering the last time she'd seen him.

 The way she'd been _sure_ it was her time, how she'd begged John to take care of her baby... to take care of himself. Her disorientation is joined now by a shiver of apprehension. If she'd survived, where was he? Where was Taylor?

 "Oh, my gosh, you're awake."

 Joss turns toward a young brunette dressed in scrubs standing at the door, hand on the knob. The girl looks at her, wide-eyed, then turns and rushes off, letting the door close behind her. Joss looks down at her hands, flexes them. They seem thinner to her, almost frail.

  _How long have I been here?_

 "Good morning, Jocelyn. How are you feeling?"

 Joss turns to the door again at the sound of a friendly voice. The doctor is younger and prettier than she expects; a young woman with a wide, if tired, smile. She moves into the room and stands at the foot of the bed.

 "I'm Dr. Enright," she continues in that same comforting tone, glancing briefly at the clipboard in her hand. "Glad to finally meet you properly."

 She needs information so Joss says nothing, hoping that her silence will encourage the doctor to ramble. She studies Dr. Enright as she explains what happened to her.

 Surgery... near-death... coma...

 The words roll off Joss like water until the doctor says how long she's been in the coma.

 "I'm sorry," she croaks, "how long did you say?"

 Dr. Enright purses her lips briefly, the only sign her composure isn't all-encompassing.

 "You've been with us a little over a month," she says softly, carefully.

 Joss closes her eyes tightly, shutting out the news and the doctor. A month, gone in the blink of an eye.

 "My--my family?" she asks the doctor shakily, needing the answer just a little too much.

 A clearing of the throat.

 "Maybe I should let your fiancé explain that part."

 Joss' eyes fly open, and she pins the doctor with a stare. She hasn't turned on the lights and the sun hits her face strangely, and Joss is unsettled.

 "My fiancé?" she asks as her heart starts beating faster and louder in her ears, the heart monitor echoing the change.

 Dr. Enright smiles at the question, glad to have good news to share.

 "He's been here almost every day. We've stopped trying to get rid of him by now. He should be here any minute--he only leaves to shower and change. He's gonna be glad you're awake."

  _John._

 She doesn't correct the doctor about his relationship to her. He must've had to lie to protect her, protect himself. But if he was here, then he was okay. Taylor was okay. She was okay.

The sound of footsteps outside her door is faint until it isn't, and the door opens again.

 "Ah, here he is now," the doctor says.

 

* * *

_**Nov 2014** _

 

The standoff lasts what seems like years, although having spent an eternity in just a few months, John admits that his concept of time may be skewed.

 The late afternoon sun bathes Joss in light and he marvels now at how it seems brighter on her, stronger. Stranger.

  _She's alive._

 He can see her gathering up the courage to say something, and he wants to beat her to it; to throw out a quip like he used to, to make her smile and pretend that she hasn't just tilted his world on its axis again.

 "Honey? Joss?"

 The deadlock is broken as Ian Murphy bursts into the kitchen and catches Joss into a tight hug, kissing her in relief when he sees she's alright.

 Suddenly all sound rushes back.

 Shaw's _what-the-hells_ and _what's-going-ons_ , Finch's frantic questions in his ear.

 Ian Murphy calling Joss _honey_.

 "Mr. Reese, please. What is going on? Is Miss Cole alright?"

 "She's fine," John says tersely, then walks out without looking back.

 

* * *

 

 "Helluva thing," Shaw says, several minutes later, after securing the intruders in the pantry. "We all thought you were dead."

Joss is sitting at the dining room table, cradling a mug of coffee. Ian has already called to check on Alex, who's spending the night at a friend's house and has joined her, reaching over to rest his hand on her knee underneath the table.

 Shaw raises an eyebrow at the gesture but doesn't mention it.

 "So Finch gets this number, we get here, and we find out that for a dead chick, you've still got some moves," she continues.

 Her comment teases a slight smile out of Joss.

 "Turns out it's a little harder to kill me than HR thinks," she replies softly.

 A bewildered Ian shakes his head.

 "I don't get it. What number? What's going on, who's after us?"

 "After _Carter_ , not you," Shaw clarifies. "And we don't know yet, although I've got a few theories."

 She turns to Joss.

 "I gotta check in with Finch in a bit and see if he can find my idiot half, but... what happened? How are you here in suburban hell?"

 Joss shrugs.

 "Sometimes I'm not sure," she murmurs, ignoring Ian's glance at her. "But the short version? Witsec. The marshals came and offered protection when I woke up, and strongly urged me to take it, so I did."

 "And they brought you here to be Suzy Homemaker? I thought _I_ had it bad," Shaw mutters.

 She watches as Joss and Ian exchange glances and wonders just what the fuck is going on, not for the first time. There's more to this story, she knows, but that's for someone other than her to figure out and probably have to fix.

 She feels a vibration at her hip and taps her earbud.

 "Miss Shaw, I've located Mr. Reese, but I'm afraid we have other problems. The threat against Miss Col--the detective..."

 "I know. Samaritan. They all have the same moves; it's like they make them in a factory."

 "Yes, well... It means we'll have to move Detective Carter and quite possibly even Mr. Murphy and his son to a safe house. I will send you the coordinates."

 "Figured. I'll handle it."

 Shaw moves to disconnect the call but pauses when Finch speaks again.

 "Miss Shaw, I fear that despite the... _arrangement_... the detective and Mr. Murphy have, you and Mr. Reese will have to separate them in order to keep them all safe."

 Shaw's lips twitch in amusement.

 "Oh, goody. Can I tell 'em?"

 "Sameen, please. The operatives are after Joss; it's quite possible that if Alex and Mr. Murphy are elsewhere when they inevitably return, they may escape the danger. It is purely for their safety."

 "I've got this."

 Shaw disconnects the call and turns to the couple looking at her curiously.

 "So," she says lightly, "who wants to go on a road trip?"

 

* * *

 

 

John downs the drink then signals the bartender for another. The drinks don't dull the voices in his head and he angrily asks for something stronger--anything to erase everything that's happened since getting the fucking mystery number.

_She's alive._

The loudest voice just says those two words, repeatedly. _She's alive, she's alive, she's alive_.

And she's with Ian Murphy.

He chides himself for focusing on that rather than the danger she's probably still in, but he finds a bigger part of him can't help but wonder how long they've been playing house together.

Why she never called. How the Machine didn't know. Why Ian goddamn Murphy is kissing her and calling her honey.

John studies the empty glass in front of him. He knows he's being unreasonable--that Joss would never leave Taylor unless she absolutely had to. Knows there are a multitude of reasons why she'd be living under an assumed name in an idyllic suburb for a year without any contact with her previous life.  

Without any contact with him.

He knows, too, that he’s had his own issues with anonymity. That it would be nearly impossible for someone to find him unless they knew where to look, _how_ to look.

He signals for yet another drink. He ignores the bartender's disapproving sigh as he silently pours another double.

_She's alive_.

So much of him wants to just accept that and move on, neutralize whatever threat it is after her and leave her to be happy--if she was happy--and just be glad that the world has not lost Joss Carter after all. That it was still worth saving.

John reaches into his pocket and pulls out his buzzing phone. He glances at the display: 13 missed calls from Finch. Unlucky.

He taps his earbud.

"Mr. Reese, I am loath to interrupt your little... interlude, but I must remind you that there is a reason you are there."

"Did you know?"

There is a pause on the other end, and John imagines Finch drawing back from his computer, wondering how best to tackle the question.

"I did not. I would have told you had I known, John, though I am quite certain it would've put us all in danger of discovery.” Another pause. “Still, I know you care about her."

John makes a noncommittal sound and drinks the rest of the scotch.

"The threat she's under, John. It's Samaritan."

John straightens in his chair, his blood running cold.

"Why would Samaritan target Joss?"

"I'm afraid I don't know that yet. I've been looking into it as best I can. In the meantime, I've arranged for you and Miss Shaw to transfer Detective Carter to a safe house until we can determine how best to handle this situation."

John gets up, shrugging his jacket back on.

"Understood." He hesitates. "Finch. What about Murphy?"

"Miss Shaw will explain when you join her. Go, Mr. Reese. Protect her."


	3. Velleity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Perspective is a hell of a thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for the kind words! They're very appreciated, and they keep me going. Hope you enjoy this chapter, too.

**_Feb 2014_ **

 

It takes Joss a long time to plan it. Even knowing that HR was on its last, unsteady leg, she knows that there’s a good reason for her to be in Witness Protection in the first place. The biggest mistake anyone in her position could make is to contact family or former friends.

But she needs to see Taylor. Needs to know he’s okay, just once, and then she can go back to that strange life she’d forged with Ian. It is still new, and uncertain, but she has to admit that Ian has committed to it--and her--admirably. She is still not too sure why. But in the face of the loss of all she was, this small tether to security is...comforting. So she stays, accepts him.

This is her one condition.

She doesn’t inform Ian of it; instead she tells him she is going into Boston for a shopping trip. Her heart pounds the entire time she lies, but she does it all the same.

Once he accepts, it is a whirlwind of switching cars, changing clothes, rattling trains and a shaky sigh when she realizes she’s made it; she’s back in New York City.

The city doesn’t recognize her, of course. Her hair is lighter now, and longer, and she’s thinner than she was. Her wardrobe is different. She is thoroughly Josephine Cole.

She takes advantage of the anonymity, though she does tense whenever a police cruiser screams past her, or when she notes an officer patrolling.

Finally, after renting a car, she makes it to Taylor’s school just in time to see him be dismissed. Her breath catches. He seems bigger. More solid. A man now.

Through the windshield, she sees him laugh and hug his friends, then turn to a pretty petite brown-skinned girl with tight curls and a kind smile. Taylor bends to kiss the girl gently, and Joss can’t help the tears, then.

She is unprepared for how much it hurts to see her baby and not be able to touch him, to hug him close, to hear the teasing in his voice when he scolds her for smothering him.

Her baby boy.

He is already preparing to go off to college, she knows, and she remembers how he told her he was thinking maybe architecture, maybe aeronautics. It hurts to not know which he settled on.

_ But I can’t get closer _ , she thinks, a sob catching in her throat.

This is all she gets; this fleeting glimpse into his life without her-- _ after _ her--and though her heart bursts with pride, it also cracks a little under the knowledge that his life can go on when hers has been derailed so thoroughly.

_No going back._

When he grabs the girl’s hand and turns to leave she wipes her tears and heads back. It's not enough, but it’s all she gets.

 

* * *

 

**_Still Feb 2014_ **

 

Joss returns the rental but stays in the city. She doesn’t want to leave without at least trying to find John. 

She curses him again for never telling her where he lived, or even where he and Finch had their hideout. But then she curses herself for never asking. Would he have told her? She realizes now that everything important she knew about John she had either guessed or discovered herself.

And yet she still feels like he’s told her everything there is to know, all that matters to him, even if she only realizes it now.

_What if he’s dead?_

She shakes her head, dismissing the possibility, and continues searching places she’s met him before. She tries a bar he took her in those early, tentative days when she was still debating getting involved with him. She doesn’t linger. The bar is near her old precinct and she can’t relax for fear that Fusco or any other cop will stop in and recognize her.

She tries walking near Finch’s Burdett apartment, and the safe house he kept, the one where she’d met them before trying to bait Ian. If they were working a case surely they’d bring their newest protectee here. She stays there for a long time but no one comes.

Her last stop is the Lyric Diner.

She lets the dark thoughts win here, where she watches the afternoon die and nurses a coffee she never drinks. The waitresses eye her worriedly but don’t bother her, and finally she feels so self-conscious that she orders a burger and a beer.

Flashes of John teasing her--calling her “detective” in a way that most people would use her first name--haunt her and suddenly she misses him intensely. Misses scolding him. Misses him coming into her car whenever he damn well pleased. Misses him dropping hints that he was always there, always watching over her, never too far away to help her or save her.

For all the doubts she initially had about working with him, she finds that he doesn’t rate high among her regrets. Doesn’t even make the list.

Finally, she leaves an exorbitant tip and leaves, the burger uneaten.

 

 

* * *

 

**_Nov 2014_ **

 

"Welcome back," Shaw says with a smirk.

John glances over at Joss and Ian. Their heads are bent together as they pack two duffel bags. He sees Joss place a reassuring hand on Ian’s arm and he turns away when Ian catches the hand and kisses it, smiling softly.

He makes his way over to Shaw, who’s lounging against a wall idly playing with a knife.

"I assume there's a plan," he says, focusing on Shaw as if that will keep him from being aware of Joss.

"You'd assume right. Apparently, we’re separating these lovebirds," Shaw says.

"Separate us? Why would you do that?" Ian pipes up from across the room.

"Because I'm the target," Joss says, her gaze on John, who pointedly ignores her. "It would be safer for you and Alex to be elsewhere while they try and draw HR out."

"No way. That’s too dangerous. I’m not leaving you, Joss."

“Ian--”

"It's not HR," John interrupts.

Joss’ brow furrows.

“What?”

Shaw slides the knife into a thigh sheath before answering.

“Yep. Brand-new animal. Samaritan. Bigger pain in the ass,” she informs Joss. “There’s a chance that you’re the only target--for whatever reason--and if you are, it’s much safer for Good Will Hunting and Good Will Hunting Jr. to be… not with you.”

From the corner of his eye he can see Joss nod carefully.

“Okay, but what  _ is _ Samaritan? I’ve never even heard of it before.”

“Well, that,” Shaw says almost cheerfully, “I can explain to you while we’re on the road. You’ve still got that Nano I gave you, right?”

John finally stirs and Shaw looks at him in amusement.

“I go with Carter, right, Reese? Or do you wanna flip for it?”

John’s jaw tightens and he heads to the table with the duffel bags, grabbing Joss’ without a word.

“Wait, wait, I’m not sure I’m convinced about this whole thing. Separating us? Taking Joss somewhere to hide from who-knows-what? And all we have is your word that this is something the marshals can’t handle?”

Ian rounds the table and grabs John’s arm, stopping him from leaving the room.

“I think we better call the authorities and let them sort this out,” he says firmly.

Shaw scoffs.

“Your funeral.”

John looks down at Ian’s hand still on his arm and reviews a mental catalog of ways to break it before shaking it off and continuing out of the room to load it in the car. He doesn’t think about why he slams the trunk closed just a little too hard and instead rounds the car to sit in the driver’s seat.

He doesn’t want to go back into the house and have to see more evidence of Joss and Ian’s domesticity. The pictures on the wall of a laughing Joss wrangling Alex at the beach; notes on the refrigerator with reminders to pick up milk and sugar… His hand twitches and he runs it over his face, sighing.

He can handle Joss being alive. He can even handle not having been in her life for an entire year. He can’t handle seeing everything he’d secretly dreamed of becoming true without him.

He’s almost glad that Samaritan broke up this household, however temporarily. It makes him an asshole, he knows, but then again he’s never kidded himself that he’s a good man.

The front door finally opens and Shaw, Ian, and Joss exit, apparently done with preparations. Ian seems more amenable now, carrying his duffel bag in one hand and holding Joss’ hand tightly with the other.

John clenches his jaw again as Ian and Joss come to a stop next to his car and Ian releases Joss’ hand to lightly caress her cheek before pulling her into a sweet goodbye kiss.

Their goodbyes are muffled and low, and John petulantly turns on the ignition, wordlessly urging them to make it quick.

He can see Shaw smirk and pull Ian toward another waiting car, reminding him that they still have to pick up Alex.

“Stay safe, Carter,” Shaw shouts as she and Ian get in the other car.

They drive off and Joss gets in the car with him, studying him quietly.

He tries to ignore her and guns the engine, making the car speed off into the late afternoon sun.

 

* * *

 

They are halfway to Albany before the silence gets to Joss.

She sneaks a glance at John, who’s been driving for more than an hour without stopping in stony silence.

She sighs.

“You gonna talk to me at some point, John?” She notes the tick in his jaw at the question.

Instead of answering, he reaches over to turn the radio on. Classic rock bursts out of the speakers and Joss shakes her head and turns it off.

“Well?”

“What do you want me to say, Carter?”

Back to Carter again. Of course.

“I don’t know, John--hi? How’ve you been? Sorry for disappearing off the face of the earth?”

He scoffs. It sounds a little bitter to her, but his face doesn’t betray it.

“Or maybe… what it is we’re running from? How you found me? Where Shaw is taking Ian?”

“You’re married now.” It’s not a question, and he says it carefully. A little  _ too _ carefully, as if he’s testing something.

She settles back in her seat, turning to gaze out of her window.

“Engaged, actually,” she says softly.

“Happily?”

Suddenly she regrets pulling him out of the silence. She doesn’t know how to navigate this, how to explain a life she thought she needed without him. How to try and justify how she survived-- _ is surviving _ \--a broken heart.

“Maybe you’re right, maybe we shouldn’t talk right now.” She leans over to turn the radio back on but he grabs her hand before she can.

He doesn’t say anything, but he does glance at her with calculating eyes before he gently releases her hand and she sighs.

“It’s… complicated, but… yeah. Most days.”

Her honesty makes his jaw tense and somehow she feels like she’s just stabbed him.

“What about you?” she asks. “Seeing anybody?”

“My life doesn’t really allow for that these days.”

“Shaw said you were legit now. Gainfully employed. A detective, no less! Poor Fusco,” she chuckles, shaking her head.

“It’s just a cover.”

“So the redhead Shaw mentioned…”

“Shaw has a big mouth.”

“So there  _ is  _ someone.”

“No. Can we talk about something else?”

Joss nods once, a silent  _ of course. _

“I forgot we’re not that kind of friends. Go ahead and keep her a secret, then, John. Lord knows she wouldn’t be your first.”

“She’s not--” A sigh. “She’s my therapist. That’s all.”

Joss rears back in disbelief.

“Therapist, huh? Why didn’t we ever think of that?”

She smiles when his lips twitch in amusement.

“Turns out the NYPD doesn’t like it when I shoot people.”

“No! Really?!” Joss’ feigned shock teases a smirk from him. “I guess it was too much to hope you’d stay out of trouble.”

“Look who’s talking.”

“Hey, don’t look at me, I was making a damn casserole for dinner when y’all decided to bust into my life.”

She realizes her mistake when the smirk falls off John’s face and the silence settles back over them like a shroud.

After a few minutes, John breaks it, speaking almost too low for her to hear.

“I thought you were dead, Joss.”

She lowers her head, sighs.

“So did I, for a while.”

And this time, the silence keeps.

  
  



End file.
